Pre post studio post

The French artist Daniel Buren, who visited NZ to oversee his remarkable installation at the National Art Gallery in 1990, is no lover of artist studios. ‘My studio is the place where I am working,’ he claimed in October magazine decrying the studio’s ‘simultaneously idealizing and ossifying functions.’ Of course Buren, like most artists, even those of the post studio generation, still has a place to settle down and think about his work. The Mexican artist Gabriel Orozco calls his space an ‘operating centre’ and even post studio's poster boy John Baldessari works in a space that to anyone not a member of the no-studio club might well think was a….studio. All this to announce that more studio shots are now up on OTNSTUDIO. Four sets were from visits over the last couple of months - Andrew Beck, Judy Millar, John Parker and Peter Peryer – and there’s an earlier set taken in et al.’s studio in 2009.

Image: Judy Millar in her Anawhata studio, September 2016

Said and done

To entertain you on your way to the latest batch of OTNSTUDIO photographs, we've looked around for some studio quotes. There's quite a range:

The portentous: The studio is a laboratory, not a factory. An exhibition is the result of your experiments, but the process is never-ending. So an exhibition is not a conclusion. - Chris Ofili

The optimistic: 'I used to empty the studio out and throw stuff away. I now don't. There will be a whole series of dead ends that a year or two down the line I'll come back to.' - Anish Kapoor

The impressed: 'Bill's studio was just one painting on his canvas or maybe a few others. But Gorky overwhelmed me with the sense of profusion. There were paintings all around. Overwhelming, I thought, I have come as the crow flies to the real artists in America.' - Elaine de Kooning 
 
The hard core: 'An artist's studio should be a small space because small rooms discipline the mind and large ones distract it.' - Leonardo da Vinci

And the idiotic: 'We allow no geniuses around our Studio.' – Walt Disney

Meanwhile, on OTNSTUDIO we've added some recent photos of Kate Newby’s New York studio from earlier this year,  et al. in January, Peter Robinson in July getting ready for his recent Hopkinson Mossman exhibition, Peter Peryer taken a month later and jeweler Warwick Freeman seen yesterday in his Devonport studio.

Image: Kate Newby at here New York home and studio, 13 April 2015

Monday quizz

Our mystery object this week is from the art world. Prizes for the first two correct answers. NOTE: Members of the Dowse Art Museum staff who already know they are templates for hanging the Peter Peryer exhibition are not eligible.

The Peter principle

In the eighties we curated an exhibition called When art hits the headlines. It traced a long story of outrage, contention, hilarity and humiliation as the public, funders and taste makers set to about who got to decide what was and what was not art, what was and what was not good art and who was going to pay for it. In an age of increased professionalism art controversies are usually headed off before they erupt, but every now and then a Councillor will raise his (usually) head and observe that something is amiss. That’s clearly what happened in New Plymouth last week when a group of Peter Peryer photographs was put in front of a Council purchase sub committee. Councillor Colin Johnson challenged one, "I like art, and I like some of these pictures as well ... but I can't see the point in the carcass one, and I see it costs $2608." 

The Govett-Brewster’s director’s Simon Rees was quick to point out the irony that the ‘carcass’ was in fact a movie prop and (embarrassingly for the Councillor) a prop used in a movie shot locally #gottalovethelocal. While art controversies are often conceived in Council Chambers they are usually delivered by the media. Usually that media is WTFing over art but they're not above turning around and scorning the same behaviour from a local official. This was what happened in New Plymouth.

In earlier decades media flare-ups like this were usually distressing to the artist involved. Colin McCahon's treatment and his response to it are the textbook demonstration of such negative impacts. Today, it's often different. An email from Peter Peryer letting us know about the fuss was gleefully headed, "At it again!"

Righteous

Did you know that we all favour the left-hand side of our face when we take/ pose for portraits? This includes over 90 percent of the depictions of Jesus throughout history. This insight is just in from science writer Sam Kern in The Atlantic (you can see the video here) with some speculation about why this might be (more attractive, more emotional). As photographer Peter Peryer was staying with us, we decided to look up his catalogues and test the idea.

Wouldn’t you know it, in practically every portrait he has made Peter Peryer favours exactly the reverse. When Peter isn’t going front-on, he almost invariably has his subjects turn the other cheek, in this case the right-hand one.

We of course did some counting. In the exhibition Erika: a portrait by Peter Peryer three of the portraits are face-on, two favour the left-hand side of the face like the rest of us would, and seven that favour the right. We’re figuring that this tendency may help explain why Peryer’s portraits can be so unsettling and memorable.

Image: Peter Peryer’s Self portrait, 1977

Auction fever

If you were wondering how NZ's two main contemporary art auction houses differ, Wellington was the place to do it last week. Both Art + Object and Webb’s did the man-in-a-van thing and brought down samplers of what's coming up in their next auctions. One (A+O) showed their wares in the white cube(ish) spaces of 30 Upstairs on Courtenay Place and the other (Webb’s) on the dark panelled walls of The Young up the hill.

A + O promoted their offering via one of their distinctively oversized catalogues while Webb’s returned to a more conventional Sotheby’s-like format complete with a magazine front section.  Both catalogues featured a fold out, Webb’s for Bill Hammond and A+O for Ralph Hotere.
 
As usual the core offerings are pretty similar. Both include Michael Smither (two sixties domestic paintings), Peter Robinson (A+O four, Webb’s six), Michael Illingworth, Peter Peryer (both offering his portrait of Christine Mathieson, Webb’s with a low estimate of $5,000 to A+O’s $7,000), Pat Hanly, Michael Parekowhai (A+O a couple of photographs and Webb’s a maquette for the rejected 2002 proposal for The Christchurch Square), Don Driver (both including a work featuring sacks spills that could have been made the same day but are in fact separated by 14 years) and  Frizzell (A+O two, Webb’s six).

And the differences? A+O have works by Ted Bullmore and Julian Dashper on offer, Webb’s have half a dozen by Ralph Hotere,  a couple by C F Goldie and six works by Bill Hammond.

Of course the big difference is in sheer volume. Webb’s are presenting 103 lots that they are hoping will fetch (on low estimate) $3.15 million. A+O are going for $1.96 million (on low estimate) from 69 lots. Webb’s are putting up seven works valued over $100,000 on low estimate to A+O’s two.

So 26 November for A+O and two days later for Webb’s. Game on.
Images: left, A+O present Smither at 30 Upstairs and right Smither via Webb's at The Young

Feather weights

Four years ago we spotted David Lynch doing the Peter Peryer thing with a chook. This time it’s more bird/artist action with Leonardo DiCaprio photographed by Annie Leibovitz.

Images: Peryer Self portrait with rooster 1977, Leonardo Dicaprio by Annie Leibovitz 1997 and Andrzei Dragan's portrait of David Lynch 2007.

In Provence

Thinking about Peter Peryer

Proof positive

For a time in the mid-1980s we arranged with Peter Peryer to get a copy of each of his photographic contact sheets. In those non-digital days photographers passed light through the negatives to produce a same-size positive print to help select images. We've always loved to see the ones that didn’t quite make the cut for the insight they give into what a photographer is aiming for. 

Could anything have been more fascinating than the release of so many Diane Arbus proof sheets in the book Diana Arbus: Revelations? Not for us. For a start who'd have guessed that the famous shot of the young boy clutching the toy hand grenades was selected from a full sheet of the same kid hamming it up for the camera?

Peter Peryer’s proof sheets are just as intriguing. This contact sheet was made in preparation for his October 1985 picture Octopus. The image Peter chose is top right. You can see how he abstracted the image by removing the context of scale, a device he has often used over his 38-year career. You can also see a few clues as to how the photo was shot. In the second image from top right you can spot a peek of Peryer’s shoe and it becomes obvious that the octopus has been placed on a sheet of paper on the ground. To achieve the final version of Octopus Peter would have leant right over his model. A bird's-eye-view of a creature from the bottom of the sea.

Image: Contact sheet Octopus by Peter Peryer (click on image to enlarge). You can see how the final image worked out here in Te Papa's collection

Resting between engagements

Only in the New Plymouth home of photographer Peter Peryer would you come across this sort of thing on a couch in the main room.

Found: Cheryll Sotheran

Over the years Peter Peryer has made many memorable portraits of women, most notably of Erika Parkinson who was his wife for some time. Last week we saw a proof print of a portrait he had made back in the early eighties pinned up on the studio wall and were surprised to learn it was a portrait of Cheryll Sotheran. 

At the time of the portrait Sotheran was teaching Art History at the University of Auckland and the resident expert on the artist William Fox. She was also a founding member of the Feminist Art Network working alongside Juliet Batten, Elizabeth Eastmond, Alexa Johnston, Claudia Pond Eyley, Priscilla Pitts, Carole Shepheard and the artist now known as et al. Later she was to direct the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery and started the trend (followed by John McCormack and Pricilla Pits) of leaving there to direct the Dunedin Public Art Gallery. Sotheran was then the first Chief Executive of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa from 1993 until 2002. 

As Dame Cheryll Sotheran she now works for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise where she is Sector Director, Creative Industries, Industry New Zealand as well as a pin-up in Peter Peryer’s studio.

Catalyst

An early Peter Peryer photograph we have always loved is one from 1976 called Dog. Looking like an illustration for a Gothic spelling book, it was taken with a cheap plastic Diana camera which lends it that distinctively moody character. A while back Peter began work on an alphabet of photographs and whatever develops with the larger project, he has definitely nailed D. We saw a small print of Dog in Peter’s bathroom when we were in New Plymouth and it turns out the dog belonged to artist Seraphine Pick's family. Seraphine was about 12 at the time Peter took the photograph and was living in Russell.

Thinking of our readers and your thirst for knowledge, we rang Seraphine and asked the critical question.

OTN: So tell us, what was the dog’s name.
Seraphine: (long pause) Dog, I’m pretty sure its name was Dog.

You can see a higher resolution image of Dog here in the Auckland Art Gallery's collection

Notable

In 1983 we purchased a copy of Peter Peryer’s Zoo Music. It came in an album of two photographs in an edition of 20. One image was of monkeys in the zoo and the other of birds on branches giving the effect of musical notes. Twenty-three years later Peter made a one note version of a bird on a wire called Kereru and yesterday we saw this musical metaphor brought to life. Brazilian filmmaker Jarbas Agnelli set a photograph of birds sitting on wires to music using the positioning of the birds to determine the notes of the score.

Look alike

And still they keep on coming.
Thanks P, again.

This is another fine mess you’ve got me into

Art + Object makes a very funny (and possibly wise) commentary on the current troubles in its latest newsletter. From their next auction it features a Madame Tussauds wax bust of Depression hero President Roosevelt (lot 125 Trevor and Pam Plumbly collection) along with one of Andy Warhol’s Marilyn screen prints (lot 33 New collectors art).

”The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” - Roosevelt

“What's great about this country is that America started the tradition where the richest consumers buy essentially the same things as the poorest.” - Warhol

For more locally focussed readers they have also included Peter Peryer’s Farm study (lot 91 – New Collectors art) as a kicker.

Images: Left Roosevelt in wax. Right, Warhol's Marilyn

March, April, Maybe not

Dr Joanna Cobley has an interview with Peter Peryer on her award winning blog, The Museum Detective, that publishes stories “from behind the scenes of the museum world”. Peter is always entertaining but we particularly enjoyed his musing over what images would be ok for a Peryer calendar.

“I took a picture some years ago of a possum with his head in a trap. Now, that is not a calendar picture.”

You can listen to the complete interview here.